A reality check...
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In Europe we use trains to go shopping, attend meetings or visit Granny, everyday activities we usually plan days or weeks ahead, not 6 months. For example, 90% of all UK train tickets are bought less than a month before travel.
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For this reason, European trains only open for booking 2, 3, 4 or 6 months ahead, depending on route and operator. This is plenty for the locals! It pays to book ahead to get the cheapest fares, but it doesn't pay to be impatient, no-one can book before reservations open. European trains seldom get full (Nightjet sleeper trains are one of the few exceptions) and you'll usually have no problem getting a place.
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In my experience, the single biggest reason overseas visitors have problems booking trains is that they look too far ahead, before booking opens or at the extremity of the booking horizon when data is incomplete, some trains or dates are missing or reservations aren't fully loaded so the booking fails. Just wait! Even if you booked 2 months ahead you'd still be ahead of 90% of the locals!
The Golden Rule
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If you are trying to book at or near the extremity of the 2, 3, 4 or 6 month booking horizon and either:
(a) you don't see any trains or prices in the search results at all; or
(b) you see a some trains, but various trains you expect to see are missing; or
(c) every single train has an expensive full-flex fare against it, there are no cheap advance-purchase prices at all; or
(d) you see trains & prices so it looks as if booking is open, but trying to book them produces an error message;
...then it's odds-on that booking isn't properly open. Don't assume that 'All the trains must have been randomly cancelled', they haven't!
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Remember that the 2, 3, 4 or 6 months isn't exact, and it can shrink due to the June or December timetable change.
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If trains are missing on a few specific dates within the booking period, this is probably engineering work, see tip 2 below.
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And whilst 'Ticket not available' or 'Sold out' occasionally mean sold out if we're talking tomorrow or next week, if we're talking 2+ months ahead then 99.9% of the time it really means 'Not on sale yet, please wait'.
Trains which open 6 months ahead
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Eurostar (London-Paris/Brussels/Amsterdam, see the Eurostar page) opens up to 6 months ahead.
In fact, Eurostar can open up to 330 days ahead, but don't be impatient: If you look more than 6 months ahead the data is often incomplete, a few departures may be missing or on certain dates no trains at all show up. These missing trains almost always appear later, if you look again 2 or 3 or 4 months ahead. Basically, I don't trust the data until much closer to departure date, meaning well under 6 months.
Tip: If you're going beyond Paris or Brussels, I'd wait until your onward trains open for booking so you can check they're running as expected before buying a non-refundable Eurostar ticket. Unless you're prepared to take a calculated risk...
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German Railways (DB, int.bahn.de) open bookings up to 6 months ahead, including most international trains in both directions between Germany and Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Copenhagen, Prague, Bratislava, Budapest.
Exception: Bookings to or from Poland only open 60 days ahead, because seat reservation is compulsory on the Berlin-Poland EuroCity trains, reservations are held on the Polish Railways system, and Polish Railways only load reservations 60 days ahead. And a booking attempt made 60, 59 or 58 days ahead may still fail if the Poles are a day or two late loading reservations!
When it'll sell a ticket but won't add a seat reservation: For some inwards international journeys, for example Prague to Berlin, you'll find that int.bahn.de will sell you a ticket 6 months ahead, but it can't provide an optional seat reservation to go with it as this has to be sourced from the partner railway's reservation system which still only opens bookings 2 or 3 months ahead. In this case, buy the cheap ticket without a reservation, make an optional seat reservation later if you want one.
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Austrian Railways (ÖBB, www.oebb.at) open bookings up to 6 months ahead, including international trains and their Nightjet sleeper trains.
However, for some international routes to/from Austria it depends on their partner railway.
ÖBB's Paris-Vienna, Brussels-Vienna & Amsterdam-Vienna Nightjet sleepers often open late for booking, well under 6 months.
And for example, Vienna-Krakow on a direct train opens 6 months ahead, but Vienna-Krakow with a change at Katowice only opens 60 days ahead as that's when Polish Railways open reservations for the connecting Katowice-Krakow train. Inwards journeys from Poland to Vienna only open 2 months ahead.
Trains which open 4 months ahead
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French Railways (SNCF, www.sncf-connect.com) open bookings up to 4 months ahead, including these international TGV routes:
Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam/Cologne Eurostar (formerly Thalys) trains
Intercité de nuit overnight trains should also open for sale 4 months ahead, but they're more difficult to timetable around overnight trackwork so often open for sale late, sometimes as little as 2 or 3 months ahead, occasionally as little as 1 month ahead.
SNCF often open bookings further ahead than 4 months over the summer. On the other hand, the 4 months shrinks to maybe 2 months for dates immediately after the mid-December timetable change.
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Italian Railways (Trenitalia, www.trenitalia.com) usually open 4 months ahead, although they've been trying to extend this to 6 months.
Trenitalia loads trains in blocks, prioritising popular trains & routes, so if for example you find all trains before midday mysteriously missing from the search results especially after a timetable change, no they haven't all been cancelled, I refer you to the Golden Rule above!
Trenitalia's Intercity trains are usually loaded after their high-speed trains and the Intercity trains to Sicily often appear later. Intercity Notte sleeper trains are usually the last to be loaded, often well under 4 months. The epic Milan-Sicily sleeper train tends to appear last of all, sometimes less than 2 months ahead - so DON'T WORRY if the intercity to Sicily or ICN sleeper train you want is still missing from the search results less than 4 months ahead but other trains are there. It's not cancelled, just WAIT!
Trains which open 3 months ahead
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Czech Railways (CD, www.cd.cz) open bookings for some international trains 3 months ahead. It's worth mentioning that if a train is jointly run by the Czech and the Germans or Austrians (for example Prague-Berlin or Prague-Vienna), you'll usually find it open for booking 6 months ahead on the German or Austrian railway websites, but it won't open for sale on the Czech Railways website until 3 months ahead.
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Hungarian Railways (MAV, www.mavcsoport.hu) now open many routes up to 3 months ahead. But BEWARE, being impatient could cost you a lot of money: They appear to open some routes 6 months ahead, but with only expensive fully-flexible standard fares showing up in the search results. Cheap advance-purchase fares are only loaded 3 months or less before departure, there's no rush, many of these remain available weeks or even just days before departure. If every single Budapest-Vienna train is shown as €54, WAIT! Booking is only open when you see €13 on this train, €29 on that train, €24 on another train, clearly showing that dynamic advance-purchase fares have been loaded and reservations opened.
Trains which open 2 months ahead
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Swiss Railways (SBB, www.sbb.ch) only open sales for Swiss domestic tickets 60 days ahead. You'll find cheap Supersaver fares for longer Swiss journeys, you can only book these 60 days or less before travel - I said it doesn't pay to be impatient!
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Spanish Railways (Renfe, www.renfe.com) typically opens 60 days ahead, but Renfe's booking horizon varies erratically, as little as 30 days one month and 90 days the next. They load blocks of dates & trains at a time, and load some trains before others. People ask me why there is only 1 train a day from Madrid to Santander 50 days out, so once again I tell them to WAIT and refer them to the Golden Rule above!
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Portugal, Slovakia, Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria still only open ticket sales 60 days ahead. However, the Czech Railways open bookings 90 days ahead on key international routes. Poland in fact opens reservations for domestic trains only 30 days ahead, but cross-border trains such as Warsaw-Berlin open 60 days ahead.
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Ukrainian trains still only open 45 days ahead, but Russian trains now open 60 or sometimes 90 days ahead.
Tip 1, the big December timetable change
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All European railways change their timetables at 24:00 on the 2nd Saturday in December.
Operators never maintain their usual booking horizons for dates after the timetable change.
This is the Big Annual Timetable Change. There's a minor change on the 2nd Saturday in June, but the December one is the Big One.
So you can easily look up trains on (say) 9 December, but if you try to look up trains on 10 December you'll find no trains show up until much closer to departure date. Or you'll find some trains are loaded but others aren't. Or trains are shown but won't book properly. Whatever. It's all to do with the Big Timetable Change. Got it? Just be patient, I refer you to the Golden Rule above!
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French, German & Austrian railways (SNCF, DB, ÖBB) usually open bookings for dates after the mid-December timetable change in mid-October, so the normal 90 days shrinks to 60. And even then, the French only load data until the beginning of January, there's another delay before dates later in January are loaded.
Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian, Polish, Slovakian, Czech & Bulgarian railways usually don't open bookings for dates after the mid-December timetable change until late November or even early December, so the 60 or 90 days shrinks to as little as 10.
For places such as Turkey or Lithuania, you're lucky if the timetable data is loaded the day before the new timetable starts.
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But don't worry, no-one else can book either. The train won't sell out, you'll still see cheap tickets when booking opens. Just wait!!!
Tip 2, trains missing when booking should have opened?
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Let's say booking has theoretically opened for the train you want, but on your specific date no trains appear, or the train you expect to see is missing the from the search results. But trains show up as normal on dates before and after the dates you want. What's going on?
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It's almost always engineering work. The infrastructure operator hasn't confirmed the timetable so the train operator can't open booking for those specific dates, even if dates before & after are open. It may affect just one day, several days, random days, or longer.
It may also be because your train is an overnight sleeper, with overnight trackwork making these more difficult to timetable. So Italian and French sleeper trains may open for bookings after other trains are all open for booking, for example.
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Will your train appear in due course, or is it definitively cancelled? You can't tell, and even the operator may not know!
3+ months ahead, I'd say an 85% chance of appearing in due course, with or without an amended timetable. Just wait a bit...
If it's still missing 2 months ahead, it's looking odds-on that they won't run, but it's still possible they'll open for sale very shortly.
If it's still missing 1 month before travel it's pretty certain that it won't run. Find an alternative train or route, if you haven't already.
Tip 3, known problem trains
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Renfe in Spain is a known problem, they simply can't maintain a sensible booking horizon. One minute they have bookings open 3 months ahead, then suddenly they're barely opening bookings 30 days ahead. Worse, some trains appear in the search results whilst others don't, the missing trains will normally appear later (I refer you to the Golden Rule!).
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Trenitalia in Italy opens 4 months ahead, in fact they've been trying to extend this to 6 months, but occasionally the horizon drops to only 2 months or so. Trenitalia does not load all the trains at the same time: I've seen regional trains appear while high-speed trains are missing. I've seen high-speed trains appear, but sleeper trains to Sicily (for example) not appear in the data until later. I've even known a period when all the afternoon trains were loaded, but not the morning ones. I've known Rome-Sicily sleepers to be open for booking, but the Milan-Sicily sleeper not appear in any search results until well under 2 months before departure. Once again, I refer you to the Golden Rule!
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Trains to or from countries such as Poland, Slovenia or Croatia may open late, even if you're looking on a website such as oebb.at or bahn.de which normally opens bookings 6 months ahead, because of delays in timetable finalisation or reservation data loading by the rail operator in question. I refer you to the Golden Rule!
Tip 4, sign up to a booking alert at Raileurope.com
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If your journey is to, from, within or between London, France, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Benelux you can run an enquiry at www.raileurope.com and if booking isn't yet open they'll offer to take your email address and let you when it opens. Raileurope.com have a clever system to check when key routes actually open for booking using their connectivity to the various systems - they don't just rely on the usual number of days. It's well worth a try!
Tip 5, book your accommodation first, risk-free
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When train booking isn't yet open people often say to me, "But I need to book my accommodation!". Well, go ahead. You can usually book accommodation at www.booking.com with free cancellation at any time up to 24 hours before your stay. I often book hotels at www.booking.com even before I book my train tickets, then I sometimes change the bookings if I revise my route or find a more interesting hotel after more research. It's so not a problem!